A Bit About Purse Party Handbags

Now, you and I know, the purse party handbag is more than just a utilitarian thing. The handbag for centuries has been elevated above the sublime to the spectacular, the unique, and the “must-have” of the season. In fact, there are a couple of designers’ bags that rival the cost of a subcompact automobile. I'm sure you have two or three in your closet right now, right.

From the designer handbags, to the replica designer bags for the modest income market, to the fakes on the black market, handbags and purses have influenced the marketplaces, trade shows, flea markets and shops around the world. Now they reign on the Internet as well. All the top designers now have web sites (as do many of the fakes illegally made).

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Mimi Spencer of Vogue has been quoted to say, “What hits you like a brick is that it’s bags, not clothes, that are the key to their (the designers) success.” In the past decades, purses have become more and more important in the overall statement of an outfit.

A survey of shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, England several years ago found that the average thirty-year-old Englishwoman owns 21 handbags and buys a new one every three months. That quickly adds up to 111 over the course of her lifetime. There's a potential here for a lot of purse parties!

But for most of us, the purse party handbag is and has been for quite some time, a necessary piece of clothing to hold every day things we need, and (let’s be truthful) what our husbands, our kids and even the pet need.

Hey, sometimes we even carry the pet in a handbag!

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Farid Chenoune puts together the book and exhibit on purses at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. He states that “If you take a little object like this one (a handbag), you’ll put together a lot of stories of what life is, what power is, religiosity, what men’s and women’s relationships are – and it’s all about fashion, too.” Now Mrs. Chenoune’s definition of handbag describes more than an evening bag. He includes doctor’s bags, religious bags and attachés in the description.

He continued to explain that all bags hold a secret; the doctor’s, the priest’s, and even the African witchdoctors’ satchel. “What you put in your bag is very important to you. That makes a bag very personal, because, in it, you have a secret. A secret gives you some sort of power.

Traditionally, for a woman, a bag holds the things you need for the day, but it’s also your little beauty factory, which is very important to the identity of the woman.”

We have all grown up with the social faux pas of looking “into a lady’s bag” without her permission. Often, the hand got slapped away. There are many other traditions that surround purses.

Men used to be the ones who gave women their purses. It was considered a sign of intimacy similar to lingerie today. Wedding purses were a traditional gift from the groom to his bride throughout the 15th century. Most likely he meant it to be returned with her dowry tucked safely inside. Some of the upper crust bags were commissioned by or embroidered by the groom’s family to depict the couples “love story”.

In Papau New Guinea, both men and women carry large knitted bilum bags that are decorated with seashells, feathers and beads. According to Mrs. Chenoune, “The people who wear them are not living on the seashore, they live in the mountains, so the more shells you have, the more important person you're. It means you know people on the seashore, and you have lot of social relationships, and all of your friends were willing to give shells to you.

Today, what's on the inside of the purse party handbag may be of a personal nature, but the outsides are practically a billboard advertising your wealth, sense of style, your occupation and age. The top designers proudly display their mark in logos, stitching, materials and clasps. At an auction at Doyle New York, a black crocodile Hermes Birkin bag, which was customized with a clasp and a lock that was adorned with 14 carats of pave diamonds, sold for $64,800.00. That’s a fashion statement!

Designer handbags are what most people talk about. They're envied, copied, counterfeited and stolen. And even though you, as a legitimate purse party host, will probably never sell an original and definitely won’t try to sell the fake purse party handbag, it's interesting to know a little about these leaders in handbag fashion.